As humans, we are looking for a change of state. It is how we make sense of the world, as in semiotics, we divide the world into opposites: good and bad, light and dark, day and night. Then we group information together and call them archetypes and symbols to imbue meaning so that we can recognise things more quickly.

According to the binary-brain theory, our neurons do too. They form little communities of neurons that work together to recognise food, not-food; shelter, not-shelter; friends, foes; the things which preoccupy us all and are classed as deficiency needs in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Over on researchgate, there was discussion about moving beyond binary which used this example:

Vegetarian diet vs Free Range Animals vs Battery Farmed Meat

If it was just vegetarian diet v battery farming it would be binary and an easy choice but add in free range and we see the complexities of life, the sliding continuum from left to right. We know life is complex but it is easier in decision making to just have two options, we are cognitive misers and hate using up all our brainpower. We want to see a change in state or a decision made. It also reflects the natural rhythms of life like the tide: ebb and flow, the seasons: growing and dying, it’s not just our neurons its our whole bodies which reflect the universe so patterns in nature resonate with us.

I began this series with an end in mind. As human-computer interaction (HCI) is an ever expanding subject, I wanted to pin it down and answer this question: What am I thinking these days when I think about human-computer interaction?

For me, HCI is all about the complexities of the interaction of a human and a computer, which we try to simplify in order to make it a self-service thing, so everyone can use it. But with the progress of the Internet, HCI has become less about creating a fulfilling symbiosis between human and computer, and more about economics. And, throughout history, economics has been the driving force behind technological progress, but often with human suffering. It is often in the arts where we find social conscience.

Originally though, the WWW was thought of by Tim Berners-Lee to connect one computer to another so everyone could communicate. However, this idea has been replaced by computers connecting through intermediaries, owned by large companies, with investors looking to make a profit. The large companies not only define how we should connect and what are experience should be, but then they take all our data. And it is not just social media companies, it is government and other institutions who make all our data available online without asking us first. They are all in the process of redefining what privacy and liberty means because we don’t get a choice.

I have for sometime now gone about saying that we live in an ever changing digital landscape but it’s not really changing. We live the same lives, we are just finding different ways to achieve things without necessarily reflecting whether it is progress or not. Economics is redefining how we work.

And whilst people talk about community and tribes online, the more that services get shifted online, the more communities get destroyed. For example, by putting all post office services online, the government destroyed the post office as a local hub for community, and yet at the time it seemed like a good thing – more ways to do things. But, by forcing people to do something online you introduce social exclusion. Basically, either have a computer or miss out. If you don’t join in, you are excluded which taps into so many human emotions, that we will give anything away to avoid feeling lonely and shunned, and so any psychological responsibility we have towards technology is eroded especially as many online systems are binary: Give me this data or you cannot proceed.

Economic-driven progress destroys things to make new things. One step forward, two steps back. Mainly it destroys context and context is necessary in our communication especially via technology.

Computers lack context and if we don’t give humans a way to add context then we are lost. We lose meaning and we lose the ability to make informed decisions, and this is the same whether it is a computer or a human making the decisions. Humans absorb context naturally. Robots need to ask. That is the only way to achieve a symbiosis, by making computers reliant on humans. Not the other way round.

And not everything has to go online. Some things, like me and my new boiler don’t need to be online. It is just a waste of wifi.

VR man Jaron Lanier said in the FT Out to Lunch section this weekend that social media causes cognitive confusion as it decontextualises, i,e., it loses context, because all communication is chopped up into algorithmic friendly shreds and loses its meaning.

Lanier believes in the data as labour movement, so that huge companies have to pay for the data they take from people. I guess if a system is transparent for a user to see how and where their data goes they might choose more carefully what to share, especially if they can see how it is taken out of context and used willy-nilly. I have blogged in the past how people get used online and feel powerless.

So way back when I wrote that social media reflects us rather than taking us places we don’t want to go, in my post Alone Together: Is social media changing us? I would now add that it is economics which changes us. Progress driven by economics and the trade-offs humans think it is ok for other humans to make along the way. We are often seduced by cold hard cash as it does seem to be the answer to most of our deficiency needs. It is not social media per se, it is not the Internet either which is taking us places we don’t want to go, it is the trade-offs of economics and how we lose sight of other humans around us when we feel scarcity.

So, since we work in binary, let’s think on this human v technology conundrum. Instead of viewing it as human v technology, what about human v economics? Someone is making decisions on how best to support humans with technology but each time this is eroded by the bottom line. What about humans v scarcity?

Lanier said in his interview I miss the future as he was talking about the one in which he thought he would be connected with others through shared imagination, which is what we used to do with stories and with the arts. Funny I am starting to miss it too. As an aside, I have taken off my Fitbit. I am tired of everything it is taking from me. It is still possible online to connect imaginatively, but it is getting more and more difficult when every last space is prescribed and advertised all over as people feel that they must be making money.

We need to find a way to get back to a technological shared imagination which allows us to design what’s best for all humanity, and any economic gain lines up with social advancement for all, not just the ones making a profit.

The fig tree is pollinated only by the insect Blastophaga grossorun. The larva of the insect lives in the ovary of the fig tree, and there it gets its food. The tree and the insect are thus heavily interdependent: the tree cannot reproduce without the insect; the insect cannot eat without the tree; together, they constitute not only a viable but a productive and thriving partnership. This cooperative “living together in intimate association, or even close union, of two dissimilar organisms” is called symbiosis. (Licklider, 1960).

The above quotation is from JCR Licklider’s seminal paper Man-Computer Symbiosis (1960). I had to grit my teeth as he kept going on about man and men and computers. To distract myself from the onset of a patriarchal rage, I decided that I needed to know the precise definition of seminal. Google gave me seed of semen.

The original meaning of the word computer actually means a person who did calculations, like women in 1731 who ran a household and were advised to be clever with their husband’s wages, and whilst I am wondering about who is the tree and who the insect in this scenario of man-computer symbiosis, I am thinking that it really isn’t a good idea to aspire to have computers and people functioning as natural living organisms who cannot survive without each other. I love technology I really do, but the idea that I cannot function without it is, at the very least, disturbing.

We got a new boiler the other day complete with a smart thermostat. The smart thermostat uses an app now installed on everyone’s phone along with our locations activated to see if we are home or not and the thermostat uses the information and corrects the temperature accordingly. It will also build up patterns of our daily routine what time we get up, have a shower, take a bath, etc., so that it can be ready for us. But, only if we are home and have our phones charged. Thankfully, there are buttons on the thermostat if the WiFi goes down, apparently the earlier versions didn’t have them, and we can also log into a web browser to make changes to its routine.

Theoretically I should be thrilled, it is better than my Fitbit asking when my period is due so that it can tell me when my period is due – and since that blog, I have been given Google adverts for different sanitary products, I told you so! – or Google Nest which needs you to tell it how you want your house to run rather like my Fitbit. And, I do like data and patterns so I am interested in what it collects and what it does and if it is clever enough to respond to a cold snap or whatever.

But old habits die hard, so far we have got out an old room thermometer to check if the smart thermostat is measuring the temperature correctly as it seemed a bit high. It was right. (Just checked it, it says 25.8c the room thermometer says 22.8c quite a big difference) I guess I have just worked in computing too long and I have technology trust issues. If the Sonos is anything to go by when the WiFi goes down we are completely without music, well digital music at any rate. Last time, we got out the guitar and turned into the Vonn Trapps, I am not even joking. The alternative would be to keep other music formats and a player. But that idea doesn’t do a lot for me, I am more of a donor than a collector. I hate stuff filling up my space.

When I reader Licklider, I am reminded of ubiquitious computing rather than any other technology. I know I would rather my tech be ubiquitious than making me feel codependent on my mobile phone. All these apps for my heating, my music, my blogging, my Bikram, my electricity, my gas, it is slowly but surely turning into the precious and I feel like Gollum. I worry about my phone and can’t stand anyone touching it. Whereas ubicomp had the idea of one person, lots of computers interacting with, if I was doing it, the physiology of a person and making changes accordingly, rather than with the person’s mobile phone’s location, which strikes me as being a bit simplistic and not smart at all. (Just ‘cos you call it smart doesn’t make it smart.) And, then collecting and sharing over the Internet which causes us all to have the symptoms in the above codependent link – my phone does make me anxious and I try to please it all the time. I am forever staring at it and hoping it is doing ok, and I don’t like that feeling.

I have spent a lot of time writing about what social media can do for us, and how we can feel connected. But, in this scenario when it is not other people and it is an app, or sometimes it is other people via an app, if we are not in control, we become disconnected from ourselves and then we become addicted to the app or to the person. We give away our power and our data. The problem with these apps is that we have no control and we are barely a factor in the design. Our mobile phone is the factor in the design and it trains us to be codependent, addicted, anxious. Warmth after all is the bottom rung of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and I am staring at my bloody phone hoping for the best. This is not symbiosis, this is codependency.

But back to Licklider and his seed of semen paper, a lot of what he was trying to imagine was probably about cooperation or collaboration of the kind I have blogged about before: a space of solutions to explore, with the computer doing the grunt work and the human doing the thinking. And, I believe it is possible to do that even with apps.

In a post, David Scott Brown, looks at what Licklider suggested in Man-Computer Symbiosis and what is possible today: shared processing, memory, better input-output, different languages, etc. And, I would add, in fields where the language is precise and limited, for example, Trading think about: buy, sell, high, low, and often over the phone so applications of AI are useful and will be able to do all sorts. All the data and conversations can be recorded and used and mined. It is extremely exciting, and memory and storage is it seems infinite which would make Licklider’s mind boggle.

As an undergraduate I had to learn sparce matrices, memory was something not to waste, it was expensive. In his paper, Licklider says:

The first thing to face is that we shall not store all the technical and scientific papers in computer memory. We may store the parts that can be summarized most succinctly-the quantitative parts and the reference citations-but not the whole. Books are among the most beautifully engineered, and human-engineered, components in existence, and they will continue to be functionally important within the context of man-computer symbiosis.

Imagine his face looking at the data centres all over the world storing memes and cat pictures and abusive tweets repeatedly without checking if they have already been saved, without indexing, without any sort of check on redundancy, an endless stream of drivvel. I am sure even Tim Berners-Lee wonders sometimes about the monster he has created.

And, books take so long to write, beautifully engineered they are, we lose ourselves in them and learn from them, they take us out of ourselves in the same way our phones do, but we are addicted to our phones and to our social media to that little hit of dopamine that social media gives us, which our books don’t always do. Books are work and we are passive whereas on our phones we feel active, but because our phones are controlling our homes and training us to be codependent and anxious and powerless, it is a vicious circle of more phones, fewer books.

In these times when I look at where we are going and I am not feeling good about it, like Licklider I turn to nature, as the best designs are in nature. I also look to the wisdom of yoga. So this is what I have:

When a bee gathers pollen, it also gathers a small amount of poison along with the pollen, both get transformed into nectar in the hive. The yogis say that when we learn to take negative situations and turn them into wisdom, it means we are progressing, and becoming skilful agents of the positive.

So, even though I worry about what happens when my whole life is literally on my phone and the world’s nature reserves are all full of data centres which contain every last terrible expression of humanity, and we are so disconnected from the nature around us that the oceans are filled with plastic, and many of us are in offices far away from the natural world staring into our bloody phones, and many of us do it to create technology. Surely we can create technology to change where we are. If we want a symbiosis we must make a human-planet one not a human-computer one. I don’t care what my Fitbit says I don’t want any technology in my ovaries thank you very much.

So, with that thought and the amazing technology I have at my fingertips today, I want to share an animated gif of my cat drinking from his water fountain. Licklider said:

Those years should be intellectually the most creative and exciting in the history of mankind

And, they are. I remain hopeful that we can collect enough data on ourselves to become self-aware enough to transform it into wisdom and create something better for all humanity and our planet. In the meantime I will be enjoying watching my cat have a drink of water and I am sure Licklider in 1960 would have been just as amazed too to see my cat drinking from the fountain on a phone more powerful technologically and psychologically than he ever could have imagined. It remains to be seen whether this is progress or not.

One night a Naomi I know and I, were contemplating the window of Ruth and Naomi (above). Naomi said that the embrace looked particularly passionate and wondered what sort of relationship Ruth and Naomi were having. Influenced by the Bible and not so much the window, I said that Ruth was passionately supporting Naomi. And I thought and still think, Ruth is one cool chick you would definitely want to be around in good times and bad.

Lately, my girls have been asking me, in the same way that I used to ask my mother, how and why they got their names. There is a story for each name. I also tell them that they are beautiful and I wanted them to have beautiful names to reflect their very essence.

My mother had no such story for me. When I used to ask her how she chose my name she used to say:

I hate the name Ruth. It was your father. He wanted that name.

When I look into my girls’ eyes I cannot even begin to imagine how she called someone she loved by a name she loathed. Although, to be fair, my dad once said: No daughter of mine was going to have the initials ARSe. So, he swapped the names around. Either way, my nickname has always been Stalker.

One auntie used to shudder as she repeated the story of how my father on the way back from registering me called in to say: We are calling the baby, Ruth. She would shake her head and tell me how she once knew an awful woman called Ruth who hung onto her husband like grim death. She didn’t like that Ruth, she didn’t like my name, and she definitely didn’t like people hanging onto their husbands like grim death. Even now, I hold my husband lightly.

A long lost friend once said she loved the name Ruth and wanted it as her confirmation name, but her Roman Catholic priest told her that it was the name of a Jezebel and not fit for the sacred act of celebrating holy communion.

Ross: How about Ruth? I like Ruth.
Rachel: Oh I’m sorry, are we having an 89 year-old?

It seems to me that I have spent too much of life listening to what other people have to say about my name – and about me. Naomi definitely had the right idea that night in the Chapel. She was looking at what was in front of her and deciding what it meant. This is the way of semiotics and really, the only to live. No one else is an expert on me, not in the way I am. So, why would I seek an opinion from someone else?

When I offer an opinion, I wonder first whether a) I know enough, b) the other person wants my opinion, and c) will it cause offence or hurt? Then, I weigh up the need for me to say it out loud against a, b, and c. For the longest time, I really believed that everyone else did the same.

In Hebrew the name Ruth means beauty and friend. It can also mean truth and pity, and in medieval German/English: sorrow or compassion. It seems that in my thought processes around opinion giving, I live up to my name, that old, old biblical name.

The Book of Ruth has always really irritated me because it is a story conceived in a time when women were men’s possessions. Ruth’s husband dies but she remains loyal and leaves with her mother-in-law, Naomi, to go to Bethlehem, Naomi’s hometown, even though Ruth is a Moabite and will be leaving all she knows behind her. Ruth then works in a field gleaning wheat to support Naomi and then on Naomi’s instruction, lies at the bottom of Boaz’s bed. Eventually Ruth marries Boaz and both Naomi and Ruth are redeemed i.e. worthy and recognised once more in the patriarchal society.

The story of Ruth is often used in sermons to talk about being loyal and faithful and to love wholeheartedly, though they always skip over the other kind of loving, the lying down kind. A Lebanese female colleague once told me that she has always understood Ruth as a story of uniting tribes, and not to worry too much about the lying down.

Whatever the interpretation, we never get to hear what Ruth thinks or feels. Is she sad when her husband dies? Is Boaz sexy? Is Naomi a lovely mother-in-law? Ruth only speaks once:

Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay…

No wonder she is synonymous with beauty and friend. Ruth lights the fire. But sometimes I wish she had said a bit more. Did she lose herself in people. Did she ever ask: How empty am I, to be so full of you?

I looked up the metaphysical interpretation of the Book of Ruth which says that Ruth represents divine love, the love of what is real and spiritual, as opposed to the unreal material world. So, Naomi leaves behind the immaterial and focuses on the only thing worth having, the only thing that is real – Ruth. This puts me in mind of the metaphysical poet Rumi:

Do you think that I know what I’m doing? That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself? As much as a pen knows what it’s writing, or the ball can guess where it’s going next.

My name is Ruth, I have no idea what I am doing, or if I belong to myself. I often worry about how easy it is to lose myself in anyone and everyone, when sometimes I don’t know where I end and another person begins. But then when I look to Ruth and Rumi, I feel that this may not be the flaw I think it is and I do not need to be any different. Perhaps like the one breath or the half-breath, my not knowing is a thing of beauty, of truth and of compassion, and even when it is full of sorrow and pity, perhaps it doesn’t matter, for perhaps, like Ruth, it is divine.

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. – Albert Schweitzer

Before Christmas, I listened to a Sounds True podcast in which feminist Benedictine nun Sister Joan Chittister talked about lighting the fire and it is such a lovely phrase it has stayed with me ever since.

Sister Joan says that by choosing the right people to watch, the people who have distilled their life experiences into a wisdom which helps them to live a good and serene life, we can learn to do the same and light the fire for ourselves and in turn, for other people.

Mythologist Joseph Campbell once said that we don’t always need a why life happens as it does, but we do need a how. Sometimes life events can be so truly devastating that we forget how to tend our fire and it goes out. Sometimes, if we are lucky, as Albert Schweitzer says above, thankfully other people light us up and get us going again. They give us the how and eventually we figure out the why ourselves.

In her beautiful book Tending the heart fire, yoga leader Shiva Rea says that the human body is a miniature version of the universe, which began in a fiery explosion and has the sun at the centre on which all life depends. Our bodies are formed from the same materials as our world, and our hearts, known in tantric yoga as the fire altar of our temples (bodies) are like the sun. This is a mystical way of reflecting on our place in the universe which thrills and delights me, not least of all because it is true.

Consequently, when our bodies honour the rhythm of the natural world, for instance, going inward in the winter months, keeping warm and getting the rest we need, we are more likely to enjoy peace, harmony and creativity, and we keep our fire lit as we live the serene, good life Sister Joan was talking about.

Moreover, Shiva Rea says we can, with practice, embody fuel, fire, and firekeeper to realise the extraordinary creative force that burns within us. For, it is this creativity and desire to expand which keeps us vital and evolving. I have said before, I think this is why we are culturally obsessed with youth. Our young constantly evolve and expand, and seem full of potential and promise, in a way older members of the population can forget. But we can all learn to keep our inner fire burning to centre our energy and maintain our passion – our love for life.

Scientists have found that when the rhythm of our hearts synchronise with our brainwaves that is when we are in our optimal flow. The ancient practices of yoga and meditation bring our biological rhythms back in sync, and make us feel balanced, and just a couple of breaths or any of our own rituals can do the same. I am a big fan of ritual to sooth myself or to make a moment resonate.

Tending our inner fire is a connection to ourselves, to the world around us and to others. Scientifically, the electric magnetic fields of our hearts go beyond our own bodies, so when we sync with others we can sense when someone is in flow or not and by breathing and creating space, we can put ourselves in an open-hearted synchronised state. I know this from personal experience.

Last year, I was on a two day meditation retreat with the extraordinary davidji, and during one session there was a woman sitting next to me who kept moaning and I felt like my space was invaded, which was extra irritating because not only did I judge her for moaning, I then judged myself harshly for not being more kind, meditative and tolerant. I thought that it was going to be a long session of me feeling irritated, judgemental and not feeling the love, and then we were asked to get into twos to do an exercise. Naturally, I ended up with this woman, rolling my eyes. However, keeping the faith, we got together and followed the instructions. We put our hands on each other hearts, looked into each others eyes, breathed in and our a few times and then shared our intention for the rest of the year. Hers was about something which touched me, and I am thinking it was a private moment so I don’t need to share her intention with everyone. I don’t remember mine because I tend to lose myself in other people (I know I need to get that sorted. Or do I?). Finally, we finished by saying to each other: You are beautiful, you are doing a great job, I love you very much.

The rush of love which I felt for this woman in that moment, wiped out all other thoughts, even with my natural talent/flaw to dive deep into someone else, I felt truly loving and loved in what was now a special moment of connection and intimacy. I loved her dearly and still feel a rush of affection for her as I write this now, and I hope she achieved her intention.

It was an extraordinary experience which showed me that connection is an energy that can happen at anytime with anyone because of the way we are biologically made. We are not born irritated or disliking people. We are born from love, and we love intrinsically. It also means all the woo-woo talk is true: When we are at one with all things, we respond and interact. When we are separate, we tend to react and contract.

As Shiva Rea says:

To tend the heart fire is to create a sacred expression of our life.

The sacred is available to us in any given moment. All we have to do is open our hearts, offer up our life force and fan the flames of our inner fire (or scientifically speaking: Breathe to get our brains and hearts in sync so that our bodies produce oxytocin, and feel a connection). So on the days when we feel sad and lonely, and disconnected from others, just remember to breathe in and out and create a space in which we allow air, or people in, to rekindle our fire – that spark of love, and passion for life.

I think the world wants girls to be pretty and small and quiet. As long as I was able to stay pretty and small and quiet, everything would be fine. – Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

At Easter, my husband, our girls and I got the train from Madrid to Valencia with the intention of soaking up the sun on the beach. On arrival we went outside the station to see a transfer bus rather like the ones at airports with lots of people getting on.

I got on first and almost immediately the bus driver came down the bus to have a word with me. He was a portly, bald, small man with a sergeant major moustache who only spoke Spanish. I don’t speak Spanish (self-consciously, I now feel obliged to tell you that I speak French and Italian). So, there I was two minutes into my Valencian holiday, already engaged in an exchange in which I had no idea what was happening or why I had to have a conversation no one else on the bus seemed to have to have. The driver hadn’t even noticed that I was with my husband and children.

[pullquote]I felt like this one moment encapsulated my whole life: I was being prevented from going about my business because a little fat man had singled me out to give me a load of incomprehensible advice and attention which I didn’t ask for, didn’t want, and which made me feel uncomfortable.[/pullquote]As I watched him talking non-stop, gesticulating in a way that said I shouldn’t be on his bus, I should get off the bus, and find a different way to complete my journey, I felt like this one moment encapsulated my whole life: I was being prevented from going about my business because a little fat man had singled me out to give me a load of incomprehensible advice and attention which I didn’t ask for, didn’t want, and which made me feel uncomfortable.

I drew myself up to full height (5 ft), stared straight into his tache and told him that I didn’t care what he saying but I wasn’t getting off his bus. I was staying for the duration. We each took several turns to repeat ourselves until we were both in a lather, at which point he looked around for some backup, and my husband came over to ask what on earth was going on. The driver threw his hands up in exasperation, went back down the bus, and drove us to our destination.

As we were getting off the bus, chorusing Gracias, as I do try to behave well even in circumstances when I want to tell people to go forth and multiply, the driver came out of his little booth, followed us off the bus, pressed a note into my hand and then started explaining yet more incomprehensible stuff. He then pointed at the note which had various numbers on it. This man was hell-bent on telling me what I should be doing and I decided there and then enough was enough. I have totally and utterly had enough of having my space invaded.

So, the other night I was in a pub sat at the bar having a pint and chatting, the place was almost empty, but then a young man came to the bar stood right next to me and started elbowing me in the back. After he got his drinks I thought he would move away, but he didn’t and there he was leaning on me and crowding me. So, I tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he could just move it along. He was slightly puzzled until I pointed out that he was jostling me in a huge, high ceilinged, empty pub with a very long bar. He looked about with amazement and then apologised saying that he just hadn’t noticed that he was stood so close. WTF? How was that possible?

I am amazed and feel like I have just woken up to reality. How have I not noticed this before? Why wasn’t I angry before? Probably, because I am so used to tolerating all manner of nonsense, I haven’t even thought it was anything to get annoyed about, it has been happening to me since the day I was born.

[pullquote]Girls in middle school stop expanding like boys do and become smaller and collapse in on themselves. The main reason is that they become aware of cultural stereotypes which say that small girls are attractive to the opposite sex.[/pullquote]In her book Presence, Amy Cuddy says that girls in middle school stop expanding like boys do and become smaller and collapse in on themselves, and allow themselves to be invaded. The main reason is that they become aware of cultural stereotypes which say that small girls are attractive to the opposite sex.

In her honest, brilliant book Love Warrior, Glennon Doyle Melton describes how she believed this stereotype was the only way society would accept her which led her to live a life of bulimia, alcoholism, and drug abuse. And, we like to think that society is changing but it really hasn’t, not intrinsically.

[pullquote] It is societal, we associate powerful stances with men and powerless poses to women[/pullquote]Cuddy showed artists models dolls in powerful and powerless poses to children 6-years old, 73% of which said that the powerful poses were men, the powerless ones women. In a group of 4-year olds, 85% of them said that the powerful poses had to be men. It is societal, we associate powerful stances with men and powerless poses to women. Nothing has changed.

I have girls and naively assumed that the world would be a better place by now. Since, my epiphany on the bus I have been going about telling everyone how angry I am, and every woman I have met has a story about how they have been jostled or ignored, passed over for promotion, talked over, discriminated against, and a lot worse, purely because of their gender. And, like the young man at the bar demonstrated to me, it is so deeply ingrained, it is often done subconsciously.

In a brilliant ted talk called Raising brave girls, Caroline Paul explains how we encourage girls to be fragile whilst encouraging boys to be adventurous. We need to treat girls in the same way so that they feel at home in their bodies, so that they feel expanded and strong.

Cuddy recommends that the best way to change this is, each time your daughters, sisters and friends collapse in on themselves, show them examples of girls and women who are not conforming to the images and stereotypes that kids are exposed to. Show them that there are other ways of being in this world.

Women do not need to emulate men but we do need to encourage girls not to be afraid to express their personal power and to ask people to stop invading their space.

For as Doyle Melton asks: How can you be a successful girl if the purpose of being human and growing is … to find your voice? and society’s message to girls is to stay small and quiet: It’s a set up.

Let us tell our girls: Keep expanding, ask for what you want. And, in those times when you don’t get it, and when people behave badly towards intentionally or otherwise, please know absolutely and utterly: It is not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.

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Tue 18 June, Oxford. This is Sarah, who invented Stories Aloud, offering it for free if you need it, because she is one of THE most awesome people in the book world I've yet met. See the thread. Pay if you can. It's a brilliant night. https://t.co/N2qRZbOLg0

Not sure the violinist 🎻in the hospital waiting room was the best idea. Set me off, I cried for everyone in there and then thru the appointment, blood test, tube ride, #bikram, shower, lunch, park and now I am v tired. 😪